Useful Tips to Design Well Under Pressure

We all have our good times and bad times. There are times when a person fails to shew his/her creative side, resulting in dark thoughts about the very designing skills.

Well, anyone can become a terrible designer depending on the situations. It will be a false statement if I say that designers are never out of creative ideas. The major reason why any designer can face a blockage is pressure.

A designer can be under pressure because of various reasons:

tight deadlines

difficult clients

shortage of resources

personal problems

Regardless of the reason, one must learn to work under pressure. In fact, it is a crucial step along your career development. You will face a lot of difficult times throughout your life and you cannot just give up on everything. So, one must be ready to work well under pressure and difficult situations.

Find Out What Works For You

The same kind of tips cannot be applied on everyone and for every situation. We all have our own way of dealing with circumstances. No one knows you better than yourself, so try and figure out what works best for you while you are under pressure.

As a designer, you must be aware of various techniques that can help you in dealing with creative challenges and tight deadlines. Always remember, your work and creativity should not suffer and it will suffer only if you are unable to handle work pressure.

Take Notes

If you are well organized, it is going to help you more than anything else. One of the major reasons due to which designers are unable to meet deadlines is that they are less organized and this is exactly why they fail to handle situations properly.

The best thing to do is to focus on your goals and document them. You don’t have to write each and everything on a piece of paper. You can make small notes of the most important things.

This will help you in following a certain procedure and also you will be able to take things slowly and step by step. In this way, things won’t go wrong and you will be able to meet deadlines.

Your own personal scrap of paper trail can help you in mysterious ways and when everything is going according to plan, you will not worry about things going wrong, hence there goes the work pressure.

From Rough to Refined

Like in any other branch, designers need to start things from big to small. Since it is a creative field, you can start off your projects with a rough idea of how things are going to look like and you can refine your rough ideas later on.

Make sure that you get the approval for the rough idea of your work from your client so that you can officially start working on improvements. Failure to ask the client is a big mistake, because you might have to make the concept all over again and when you have tight deadlines to meet, it’s not an ideal situation to be in.

Balanced Communication with the Client

While designing something, feedback from clients is way too important to be neglected. There are various types of clients. Some clients won’t even interfere in your work and some clients would like to keep a constant check on the progress of their project.

The key to maintain things in a better way is to have a balanced communication with the client. Do not ignore the importance of client’s feedback as you will have to re-do things if he doesn’t like them.

Also, do not let the client interfere in even the tinniest of your affairs as this will distract your ideas and views of making a project perfect. So, keep the communication on a balanced level and the result will be a well finished project.

A Well Deserved Break

In most cases, the first design in the designer is supposed to be a perfect fit for the project. Improvements can be added later on. However, chances are that your first idea might get rejected by the client.

In such cases, constantly trying to come up with something new and according to your client’s view can be very frustrating. You won’t be able to come up even with a good design. That’s definitely the time for a well deserved break.

Clear your head, think about your client’s requirements and then start working on it again. If you will not take a break and keep working on the project, you will simply run out of ideas and you might come up with something of less good quality which is not appreciated.

If you think you need to convince your client to accept your design, take your time and come up with a few logical points that your client might be missing. If you are still unable to convince him, this break will help you in understanding client’s requirements and design a more precise project.

Accept Criticism Graciously

Criticism is a part of every field and one must be able to handle it well. As a designer, you should never design to prove a point or to prove your critics wrong.

Useless comments on your good project can be very frustrating at times, but you should always act professional. You must never challenge your client’s point of view. Try explaining them the reasons and logic as to why you selected a certain design. If you are unable to convince them, leave the argument and start working on coming up with a brilliant design (keeping in mind their suggestions and wishes).

Get Inspired

Each and every creative person in the world seeks inspiration from one thing or the other. When you are struggling with a design, you need to look for that one inspiration source that can help you in coming up with an exceptional design.

People do tend to ignore the importance of inspiration material and especially when they are stressed out or under pressure. Creative people can get inspired from anything.

Take a break and look around. You will definitely find something which can inspire you. You should be able to tackle with your problems in a better way. Staying depressed or under pressure will help no one.

Second Opinions

The most common situation of a designer under pressure is when the clients are giving him a hard time with their approvals. Constantly coming up with something new and getting rejected can be very frustrating.

If you are unable to deal with the situation on your own, it is always good to get second opinions. Make sure you have enough time to meet deadlines as well. If you have a manager, go up to him and seek help. He should provide you enough support and resources to come up with a design which is according to your client’s needs – he is being paid for it after all, isn’t he?

Final Thoughts

The tips we discussed can be very useful for a lot of designers when they are under pressure. Personalities are different, so these tips might not work for everyone as everyone has their own way of handling things. All you need to do is to focus and try to find things which will help you work well even when you are under pressure.